Haiti earthquake anniversary highlights faltering aid effort

As with most catastrophes, the moment coverage of it begins to wane, so too does our concern for the affected. For Muslims, this ubiquitous dynamic can only be described as endemic of a much larger problem facing society, that being the manner in which the media informs our opinions, and in doing so, shapes our lives.

One such event that captivated most of the world not too long ago was the Haitian earthquake of 2010. Roughly a quarter of a million people were killed, and reports are now coming out that relief efforts, equipped with literally billions of dollars flowing in from across the globe, have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Hatian people. Today, hundreds of thousands of Haitians remain in relief encampments with little progress on the reconstruction front. Toppled homes, buildings, and infrastructure remain as they were in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. Such despondency is not only tragic, but downright criminal.

I cant honestly claim to continuously spend my days contemplating about the plights being suffered by those less fortunate, and more times than not, my attention is dictated by the media coverage as well, so its difficult for me to play sanctimonious. But I figure the least I can do is help raise awareness, and in that vein, I’ve linked two articles below as well as a link to Islamic Reliefs website for donating to Haiti. May Allah guide us to what pleases Him and allow us to live lives in His obedience. Ameen.

By Alice Speri Alice Speri – Tue Jan 11, 6:46 pm ET
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – For more than six weeks last fall, a brand new obstetrics hospital remained empty and closed, its Ikea furniture still wrapped in plastic, a reminder of how far Port-au-Prince had to go to recover from the Haiti earthquake.

Meanwhile across the street, a camp with 1,500 families had no access to medical care beyond occasional visits by the Haitian Red Cross. The hospital, commissioned by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has since partially opened.

But questions remain about why the project in the neighborhood of Delmas 33 was delayed by the government, a symbol of the bureaucracy that has stood in the way of many of the projects run by the more than 900 NGOs that descended on Haiti after last January’s earthquake, which killed 230,000 people and left 2 million homeless. Continue reading here….

﻿Article 2:

One year after a devastating earthquake toppled homes and killed roughly 250,000 people in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country is still reeling from the devastation.

As Reuters reports, despite billions of dollars of donations and aid pledges from some of the world’s most powerful leaders, a 12,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping presence and an army of relief workers, the debris that clogs much of the city and a million homeless people living in tents are blunt testimony to the unfinished recovery task. Meanwhile, the nation’s cholera epidemic, which began this past fall, continues to run rampant. Continue reading here….